


Softer Memories

by linndechir



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Body Worship, M/M, Orgasm Delay, Overstimulation, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-19 10:23:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10637910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: Alfred had been watching Bruce go down darker and darker paths over decades. He'd long given up the hope that he could stop him, but the least he could do was to remind Bruce of his own needs every now and then.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [falsteloj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsteloj/gifts).



It didn't matter the time of night, the most likely place where Bruce was to be found when he wasn't out in Gotham or passed out in his bed was the Cave. Four in the morning, and Alfred had long stopped thinking about how they both ought to be asleep. As he'd grown older, he'd reached the point when pulling all-nighters to support Master Wayne during his nightly escapades had grown harder with every year, and then, around the time he'd turned sixty, he'd passed a point where he himself had started to sleep so little that he might well have spent his nights awake even without Bruce's help.

Bruce was sitting by the computer, scrolling through surveillance tapes with a frown on his face that belied his patience. His hair was going grey in too many places, the lines on his face had deepened, but that frown looked exactly the same as it had thirty years ago. The same expression Alfred had still hoped to chase off a sullen teenager's face. He'd long given up on that hope. 

Alfred joined him, noticing Bruce's lopsided posture, the way he was favouring his left arm. The right one was still giving him trouble then, dislocated a few too many times ever to go back to the way it had been before, and that wasn't accounting for the still healing cut on his upper arm. He put a hand on Bruce's shoulder – not that Bruce hadn't notice him approach, but when it wasn't for patching him up, they touched rarely enough these days that Alfred felt like it deserved a warning – felt muscles tensing under his fingers and relaxing again.

“If you wouldn't mind taking that off, Master Wayne,” he said, already prepared for Bruce giving him a frown over his shoulder.

“What for?”

“So I can have a look at your injuries, which, knowing you as I do, you've pointedly ignored since yesterday.”

It almost worried him that Bruce complied without further arguments – usually a sign that he was injured enough to know that Alfred's attention was needed – but he didn't look much worse for wear when he rose to his feet and peeled out of the Bat's undersuit. 

At least not much worse for wear than at any other time. The bandage around his arm was clean from blood, the purple bruises on his ribs were starting to fade. The scars … 

Alfred touched his fingertips to an old bullet scar just below Bruce's shoulder blade. The skin was hot and a little damp with sweat, taut over muscles that were stronger and thicker these days than ever before. Bruce had worked out like a madman ever since he'd set out on this path, but the last few months had added a whole new dimension to it. Alfred wondered what wounds he would have to patch up if Bruce went through with this madness – broken bones to splinter, cut flesh to mend, burnt skin that would never be anything but knotted scar tissue. He wondered if there'd be anything of Bruce left to patch up at all.

“There are limits even to what your body can endure,” he said. He didn't mean to start another argument, and arguments were what they started every other time they spoke these days. 

“It can handle one last fight.” The words drove a chill down Alfred's spine. Maybe it should have reassured him that Bruce was at least aware of the dangers he was courting, but Alfred had been a soldier himself once – he knew how much punishment and pain a man could bear if he was determined to stay alive, and how little it took to bring down someone who thought he had nothing left to live for. Someone who'd already accepted that he wouldn't make it out of a battle alive.

His fingertips slid up to the back of Bruce's neck. Part of him would never quite get used to Bruce being taller than him. Another part had long quite shamefully enjoyed that it was Bruce's neck he looked at when he stood behind him, strong, unbowed, pale where it was always covered by white silk or black kevlar. The first time he'd kissed that neck, he still had to bend down a little for it.

Bruce hadn't moved an inch since he'd straightened up, stood as perfectly still as the Bat amidst Gotham's gargoyles, but Alfred knew this body better than he knew his own. He recognised the faint tremors that went through Bruce's back muscles when his fingers ghosted down Bruce's spine. He knew the minute twitch of Bruce's head, leaning back ever so slightly into Alfred's touch. He heard the low intake of breath, a heartbeat before it was due, interrupting Bruce's usually so smooth, controlled breathing.

He hadn't touched him in this manner since they'd buried the boy they'd both seen as a son. The _other_ boy Alfred had seen as a son, besides this one, whom he'd raised and enabled and watched twist into what he was now under his hands, every one of his attempts to support him only pushing him further down a path that had led into darkness and madness and the planned murder of a god. 

At times the thought had crossed his mind that this had been the thing that had broken Bruce – his caretaker, his guardian, desiring the young man he'd been tasked to protect, and unable to resist that desire in the end. He knew it was a lazy explanation, an easy excuse he wanted to give himself to absolve them both of all the far graver mistakes they'd made.

“Alfred, I don't have time for this,” Bruce said, but there was no heat in his voice. He sounded so very tired these days, whenever the obsession let up for long enough to reveal nothing but bone-deep exhaustion.

“You will make time for this.”

Once upon a time, the first times they'd done this, Bruce had all but demanded this of him. Stubborn, bright-eyed, that same concentrated frown on his face. Alfred said no until he didn't anymore, until he ran out of reasons to say no, until eventually all those excellent reasons to say no sounded so weak compared to the reasons to say yes. These days, maybe he was the only one who remembered both the reasons he'd said yes and the reasons Bruce had asked in the first place.

Bruce had followed his lead then, trusting Alfred's hands to know what they were doing with his body the way he trusted him with everything else. The details of it had changed over the years, of the things they did and how they did them, but when Alfred's fingers slid down Bruce's spine to his lower back and pressed into the thick muscles, Bruce still followed his lead. 

“Hands on the desk.” It was possibly the first time in years Bruce did as he was told, kicked the chair to the side, bent down over the desk, his back muscles taut, his legs spread just enough that Alfred got a good look at his arse. Lean muscle just like his long legs, though Alfred knew he'd have those shaking in no time at all.

He'd brought something with him from the upstairs bathroom, not that they needed it very often these days. He considered letting the lubricant warm in his hands, like he used to when his concern for Bruce's pleasure had been more straightforward. Now he let the cool gel trickle down onto his skin, watched the shiver that made its way up Bruce's back, going through every perfectly honed muscle like a wave. 

There'd been a time when Bruce had kissed his fingers in bed, flushing in embarrassment at how much he liked their touch. Bruce hadn't blushed in years, decades even, but he still shook under Alfred's hands, under his fingers, rubbing the lubricant into warm skin, teasing where it was most sensitive before he pushed two fingers into him. Not very deep yet, he'd always liked to stretch him a little before going in deeper, before giving him what he really wanted. He liked having three fingers inside him before he ever pushed in far enough to get that first groan from Bruce's lips.

He was almost painfully tight, and Alfred tried to recall the last time Bruce had slept with a man. To his knowledge, it had been almost two years. But Bruce's body didn't forget, his self-control didn't make him wait unnecessarily long for what he needed, and he relaxed as easily as when they'd been doing this almost every other night. His body was a picture of control, leg muscles tense, his back an anatomical study, even the way he loosened around Alfred's fingers felt like an exercise in control. It wasn't what Bruce needed. What Bruce needed was to be reminded that not everything was under his control, no matter how iron-willed he was, no matter how much he beat his body into submission.

But the self-control had to be worked out of Bruce like a knot being massaged out of too tense muscles. Alfred let his left hand rest on the small of Bruce's back while his fingers worked him open, and minutes passed before he got the first moan from Bruce's lips, the first shudder that surged through his body.

“There you go, Master Wayne,” he said, and his tone might have sounded similar to when he patched Bruce up or brought him his dinner, if not for a slight breathlessness that he knew better than to assume Bruce missed. He wasn't as young as he'd once been, but even if the body wasn't willing, his mind still savoured the view. He pushed his fingers in deeper, a curl and pressure in just the right place, a steady rhythm that had Bruce panting. Once upon a time, when they'd done this more often, he would have fucked Bruce then – he'd hated himself for it the first times, had wallowed in the shame of even wanting to, to the point where he'd only been able to let Bruce ride him. 

But now, it would have felt too – not too intimate, nothing between them was. But like a painful attempt to pretend that things were still what they had once been. Bruce had never been happy, but there had been a time when he'd at least been content every now and then. When Alfred could make him content. 

He'd faltered, lost in his thoughts, and was torn out of them when Bruce clenched hard around him, his hips arching up.

“Alfred,” he said, a demand more than a plea. Alfred gave him what he wanted, for a minute or two before he pulled back just a little, made his touch too light to push Bruce over the edge. He almost smiled when Bruce buried his face in the crook of his forearm and bit out a curse. Alfred knew this body as well, probably even better than his own. He knew when Bruce was close, he knew just how to keep him on edge for long enough to make tears of frustration well up in Bruce's eyes.

His left hand slid up Bruce's back, retraced countless old scars. He still remembered when this had started, when Bruce had been young, trained to perfection, his body a wonder of athletic prowess, his skin still mostly unmarred. He'd been unbearably beautiful, irresistible in his righteous fury, a marvel under Alfred's hands. 

Bruce's fingers curled around the edge of the desk as he tried to stay quiet under those hands now, but he should have known better than to think that'd make Alfred relent, not when Alfred knew him so well.

He'd been there for every scar on Bruce's body, every broken bone, every bruise, every cut, every bullet to be dug out of frighteningly vulnerable flesh. Alfred could have told the history of Bruce's scars, even the ones whose origin Bruce himself had forgotten. Bruce knew all his weaknesses in a fight, knew how to use his body as the most efficient weapon and tool, but when it came to this, Alfred knew his body better than even he himself did.

Shoulder muscles tensed when Alfred drove his fingers in deeper, and Alfred had been there to see those grow, too, over the recent years. Even Bruce's iron discipline wasn't immune to age, and while he was still almost inhumanly fast, he wasn't as fast anymore as he'd been at twenty. He'd bulked up some more to make up for it – every weakness had to be balanced out by another strength, every flaw needed a way to compensate it. Alfred supposed there was beauty to that, too, but these days when he looked at the scars and muscles of Bruce's back, he only saw both their failings.

Bruce was pushing back against him now, his hips meeting ever thrust of Alfred's fingers. He wasn't quite losing it yet, but getting close, so very close to not resisting him anymore, not thinking to get this over with quickly and return to his obsessive, destructive work. Alfred touched the back of his neck, the short black hair that curled just a little bit at its nape. Bruce had always tended to forget his own needs in what he perceived he had to do. It had always been Alfred's job, more, his life's work, to make sure Bruce's needs were met anyway.

He led him so close to the edge that he could already hear Bruce's breath halting in his lungs, readying themselves for a last moan of relief, and then eased his fingers an inch out of him, denying him the last touches.

“Alfred, dammit,” Bruce gasped, but it wasn't an order anymore. It was soft and almost a little pained, almost relenting. Before, Alfred definitely would have fucked him now, would have curled his hands into Bruce's hair and tried not to think about just how much was wrong with the both of them. Even now he knew Bruce would have let him, would have welcomed it, but he didn't want to take anything from him when Bruce had so little left to give.

He gave him a minute to calm his breathing, to balance out on the edge, and Alfred had seen Bruce's gymnastics workouts often enough to have quite the mental image to go with that thought. There was a barely perceptible nod, and of course Bruce knew exactly what Alfred was doing, knew exactly how much he could take or not. He muffled his moans when Alfred's fingers moved deeper into him again, while his other hand massaged the tense muscles between Bruce's shoulder blades. 

And slowly, slowly Bruce melted under his hands, the tension going out of all but his legs, which trembled a little bit the next time Alfred kept his fingertips right where Bruce wanted them most, not only teasing and brushing, but a firm, unrelenting pressure.

Bruce seemed to try for his name again, but all that left his lips this time was a sigh, as close to surrender as he ever got. He didn't say please when they did this, hadn't asked Alfred for any of this in years, but he didn't need to. As well as Alfred could read his body, he might as well have been able to read his mind.

Bruce wasn't quite silent when Alfred's fingers finally gave him that last push, wrung a desperate shudder out of his body. He came with a fit, his cock caught between his body and the edge of the desk, and they both knew which one of them would be cleaning up after him. There was an almost pained relief in it, in Bruce's breathless, quiet moans, in the fitful way he clenched around Alfred's fingers. Alfred never stopped right away – he'd learnt that lesson a long time ago. If he stopped too soon, Bruce would be keyed up again half an hour later, that same restless energy that kept him up all night and made him startle awake after too few hours of sleep. As with fights, Bruce needed to be worn out, to be driven to a state of physical exhaustion that matched the weariness of his mind.

Sometimes it only took minutes, sometimes it took half an hour, but Alfred was a patient man. He'd learnt to be patient with Bruce in his care, just like he'd learnt to read the tremors that went through his back, the way he rubbed his face against his forearm to wipe away the moisture in his eyes, the way his groans turned to sighs turned to shallow, soft breathing. Knew that when Bruce stilled under his fingers, his own hands unclenched, he'd had enough.

Alfred stroked his back slowly, firmly, once he'd withdrawn his fingers – he could be patient about this, too, about giving Bruce a moment to gather himself before the muscles in his back twitched. When he started to straighten up, Alfred pulled back, made a step backwards and busied himself with wiping his fingers clean on his handkerchief.

For once Bruce didn't look like he wanted to fight the whole bloody world at the same time.

“You need to get some rest, Master Wayne,” Alfred said before that could change again. Before Bruce could start either a fight or something else. As it was, he still gave Alfred a questioning look – whatever else he was, he'd never been selfish when it came to this. And he was still so beautiful, in the same way anything was beautiful that had been battered and beaten and refused to break. He was beautiful because as long as he still stood here, no matter how scarred and weary, Alfred hadn't failed him entirely.

“This can wait until tomorrow,” he said when Bruce still didn't move.

Bruce didn't agree, but he didn't argue with him either, which was as much as Alfred could ever hope for. He didn't bother to get dressed before he turned towards the stairs.

“Good night, Alfred,” he said, his voice still a little hoarse, but for once it was at least not from anger.

“Good night, Master Wayne.” 

Watching Bruce go up the stairs to the lake house and his bed, Alfred let himself hope that he would rest well, for once. He didn't let himself hope that a good night's sleep would give him some perspective or make him reconsider his plans, but if Bruce thought he had to do this, the least Alfred could do was to stay by his side and make sure he had the best possible chances of surviving it.


End file.
